1. Field
The disclosure relates to a wire grid polarizer, and a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) panel and an LCD device including the wire grid polarizer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) device includes an LCD panel that displays an image by controlling light transmitted through liquid crystals, and a backlight unit that provides light to the LCD panel. In such an LCD panel, which displays an image using a liquid crystal layer as an optical shutter, polarized light is incident on the liquid crystal layer. To provide the polarized light to the liquid crystal layer, a polarizer that changes non-polarized light emitted from the backlight unit into polarized light is typically provided in the LCD panel. Recently, a technology of using a wire grid polarizer as a polarizer of an LCD panel has been developed.
A wire grid polarizer typically has a structure, in which a plurality of wire patterns is periodically arranged at a predetermined interval on a transparent substrate. A reflective wire grid polarizer has polarization splitting characteristics, and thus the reflective wire grid polarizer reflects polarized light that is parallel to a wire pattern direction and allows polarized light that is perpendicular to the wire pattern direction to pass therethrough. Accordingly, when such a reflective wire grid polarizer is used as a polarizer of an LCD panel, polarized light reflected by the reflective wire grid polarizer is incident on a backlight unit and is re-used, such that light efficiency may be higher than light efficiency of an existing absorptive polarizing film.